Is there no respect for the dead? Can’t we just leave the corpse to it’s eternal rest? Why am I subjecting Vanilla TF2 to the equivalent of exhumation and being ridden around the graveyard in a macabre game of horsey horsey with this record breakingly long graph fest on the joys of i52? Just remember, if the cops come by, this is the way we found it and we’re just trying to bury it again as any civic minded citizen would do.

One year ago I started these articles reviewing the stats at i49. At that tournament an innocent and bright eyed young Demoman named War (at that time rated as one of the best Demos in Yorkshire) playing in an unfancied local team made his name and has since become an integral fixture at the top of the TF2 scene, with i52 marking his final coming of age representing Europe’s finest. And then he (and the rest of his team) fucked it up.

Hopefully I’ll rise to the challenge of summarising this awe inspiring event a little more successfully than the grand finalists, although the spectre of players deliberately selling out their team to inflate their stats purely to look good in this article has raised its barely believable head, so much of this article also contains experimental and never before seen analysis methods. Can I find a way to stop the stats being dominated by log trolls? We’ll see.

Russian Guyovich — Looming in the shadow of the intercontinental 6v6 cup this year, i52 is playing host to another tournament dedicated to the 9v9 enthusiasts this side of the globe sponsored by the Team Awesome community and run by its very own Rob as a parting gift to all as he attends his final LAN before becoming pussywhipped getting married. While it is not the first 9v9 tournament featured at the i-series, it may well and truly be the debut of a LAN tournment in which the majority of participants are attending to primarily play highlander (after a casual, cannon fodder-like approach to the 6v6 group stages have come to an end).

Hildreth — As the Summer i-series approaches, European hopes will be laid on the mighty shoulders of Epsilon once more as they attempt to retain their World Champion status versus the might of North America and Australia’s Team Immunity. Epsilon managed to see off Awsomniac on Thursday night in a two map win, they retained their ETF2L crown for the 6th season running. The history books will say it was business as usual for European TF2, the formidable giants of the scene dominated and won – AGAIN. But when you take a closer look at how the past few months have gone for Epsilon, it was their worst season in years.

Hildreth – In 4 weeks and 3 days time, on Friday the 22nd August in the Ricoh Arena, Coventry, England the eyes of the TF2 world will be focused on the Insomnia 52 LAN event, the UK’s biggest gaming festival and by extension, TF2’s most coveted prize. The days of top European sides in attendance with multitudes of community teams from UK and mainland Europe are still here, but thanks to some hard work and generous donations for the third summer running, we will have not one, not two but THREE teams from different continents attending this event. North American pride is hurt after Epsilon’s victory last year at i49, so ESEA LAN winners Froyotech and i46 champions Classic Mixup have been sponsored by a HUGE community fundraiser raising over $14,000 to fly in these superstars to compete with the likes of Epsilon and Awsomniac (EU’s top 2 sides). And to add punch into the fruit bowl, it wouldn’t be a true “World Championship” without the attendance of the Australians, Team Immunity who surprised many including myself, finishing 4th in a tournament where they had beaten the 3rd and 2nd placed sides.

All in all this promises to be a truly memorable event and to celebrate the fact we have 1 month leading up, I will be a running a rather long winded, social media campaign, using the hashtag #i52tf2 to raise hype by releasing a series of articles leading up to the event. Not all will be directly related to i52, but they will all be TF2 related and hopefully an interesting read.